


do you have a human soul and can you prove it?

by silverhedges



Category: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Break Up, F/M, Moving On, but not really cause he just GONE
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-03
Updated: 2018-06-03
Packaged: 2019-05-17 20:08:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14838357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silverhedges/pseuds/silverhedges
Summary: Aeris, nineteen and hungover. Or: the moment she accepts that Zack isn’t going to come back.





	do you have a human soul and can you prove it?

This is the most beautiful sight in the world: a pile of empty plastic cups in the middle of the table. For a long time after waking up she stares at it. Her heart is beating too fast, lungs breathing too slow, body attempting to restart this program. Her tongue tastes rancid. Her neck is at an awkward angle from the way she fell asleep on the sofa. Aeris closes her eyes and lets herself into dragged again into the deep nothing of half-sleep. Her neck will hurt and that is a good enough reason not to go.

Her mind does not drift or wander. There is a heavy fog over her thoughts, making them slow and unwieldly. Caramel layers over fresh apple. This is the state she longs for the most: thinking of nothing. Being nothing. Nothing.

Yet, there is a detachment too.

Here is a list of what Aeris intellectually knows:

  * the sofa covering is scratchy underneath her fingertips
  * her wispy white shirt is stained down the back from where one of the boys spilled their drink on her
  * she has fallen asleep in the house of a half-friend and honestly she doesn’t want to see them now that the buzz of the alcohol has worn off



In any case, the last is why she stumbles up. Finds her shoes, thankfully un-stolen, and pulls the worn leather on. Winces at the dull thudding in the base of her skull. Aeris winds her way through the trashed apartment, past sleeping party-goers and bottles on the counter.

She leaves without asking anyone, or even speaking to anyone. They won’t mind and she wouldn’t care if they did anyway. Her so-called, maybe-half friends have become used to how Aeris comes and goes in their lives _. You’re a weird one_ , they say with confused smiles and silences, _you look so nice and you drink so hard! You laugh so happily and then don’t speak for hours! …are you okay?_

Outside, she automatically tries to take in a breath of fresh air.

She cannot. There is no fresh air under the Plate. Air is circulated and cleaned through mechanical grates. The lighting system is just beginning to softly glow as the system simulates life for them through metal and oil. Aeris winces at the light anyway.

There is something waking up inside her head. Or, no, it was never waking up – it is peeling back the layers of caramel to bite inside the fresh apple. It is always there. It is in control.

The world does not seem real to her as she takes the back-streets to home, body moving on autopilot. Yes, this is happening, she is walking, she is breathing and yet, this is all fake. This is a play. A mockery of real life. Her mind is disconnected and hazy from her surroundings. She is not in control. She is never in control.

The Planet is disappointed in her.

 _You are meant for more than this._ There is something trying to break through, signal trying to reach the isolated island of Hungover Aeris. Well, too bad for them. She isn’t listening, she isn’t here. She is two rooms away, listening to the noise and life of a party going on without her.

She trembles in the early morning cold: what she wouldn’t give for another bottle of cheap Shinra-branded beer to chug.

There is something inside her that aches and longs and feels. Emotions more intense than she could live through, that wrack her body head-to-toe with pain and love and regret and anger. Something larger than herself, than anyone else. The only real thing in this world. It is wild and intense and out of her control.

Aeris does not understand her racing thoughts. Aeris does not understand what happens inside her own head. Look on, all you faceless Midgar strangers, at the sweet-faced flower girl: inside her is a tsunami of the emotional power of ten thousand murdered goddesses.

She is the last Cetra, the saviour, the only one left to avenge them. She is pulled in ten thousand directions at once, she is preyed upon by the savage strength of merciless nature who demands that she answer their call.

She is everything.

He still left her.

She has to stop dead in the street. Instinctual reaction. Her stomach churns, tears spring to her eyes, her heart is pierced. Maybe one day she will be able to think of Zack Fair without reacting like this. Her head swims. He left her.

She longs, with an intense devotion, to hear the morning chirping-chorus and feel the sunlight on her skin underneath the paint-blue sky.

She won’t have it no matter how much she wants, so she’ll have to settle for the cold scarlet wine waiting for her back home in the freezer. Aeris can drink a glass (or three) and sit in the flower beds all day and cry her heart out while the Turks lurk.

At her heart of hearts, Aeris is a utopian: someone for who reality just isn’t good enough.

After a moment, she unclenches her fists and breathes more evenly and begins walking again.

Aeris is historic. She is a legend pre-made. She is waiting to become a comet: burn up, burn out, crumble to ashes. In this moment, she is a hungover girl missing her ex-boyfriend. By no means is she the last one to feel this way and by no means will she be the last. This should be allowed.

The Planet makes no such allowances.

Here is what Aeris thinks of herself:

She is a terrible and wicked person. This is not a biased statement: we are all, in our own individual ways, truly horrible people. She is an abusive and narcissistic monster. She deserves to be treated as non-human, she deserves to be locked up in a laboratory, she deserves to be taken out to an alleyway and shot in the head.

Why?

Zack must have left her for some reason.

Aeris does not know why.

She will never know why.

Her mind could stutter over the last memory she has of him. A completely ordinary day, a date, a smiling kiss on the cheek. She doesn’t remember what their parting words were. He had a mission in some winter-mountain town. He would be back soon. Ever since then, radio silence.

Aeris alights on the rickety steps to her church. What a joke this is, bringing her hungover self to a place of gentle worship. Let her live, let her go; she is a complicated human being, who can be both terrible and kind, just like anyone else. Her body is a container, not an ancient temple.

Maybe he just left her for someone else. Maybe there were signs that she missed. Maybe she had bored him or made him mad. Maybe it is just that heart-breaking, ordinary story: they are both nice people but he just doesn’t feel the same way.

Maybe he died.

That thought is as horrible and immense as the Planet living in the back of her mind. Aeris cannot truly comprehend that. Despite knowing death perhaps better than anyone else in this Earth, her mind just blanks out: not him. Someone so full of life could not die. It couldn’t happen to _him_.

She sinks to her knees at the edge of the flower-bed. She traces her finger-tips on the waxy petals.

This city is killing her. It is destroying her, one caramel-covered hangover at a time. There are enormous bells ringing slowly in her mind: you do not belong here. You cannot remain here. This is not what was meant for you.

Aeris is meant for a far-away forest and a hidden Temple. She is meant for the wind and sky and earth. She is meant for lava, for ice, for the cold brilliance of cosmic stars. She is the last Cetra, she is the last remaining oracle of the Planet. She is meant to cross that mountain, into the Promised Land.

And…

She will.

One day, she will be in that Promised Land.

The Promised Land, where loss can be borne. Where no one has to make the choice that everyone has to make: which one will leave first. Zack left her first and maybe that was his choice and maybe someone else made that choice for him. Aeris will never know the truth.

Aeris closes her eyes, tilts her head back. The world swims behind her closed eyes, light bursting in vivid colours. She should go home and crawl into bed and nurse this hangover. Not forgive herself, but only because there is nothing to be forgiven. She is a girl-goddess and even they make mistakes.

One day this pain will be useful to her. The next loss will not be so great. The sun will shine on her again and one day, she will meet someone who completely understands. Who will look into her eyes and say: yes, I have lost someone too. Now I have gained someone else.

All she has to do is wait.

**Author's Note:**

> Title comes from Richard Siken, the Long and the Short of it.
> 
> Aeris is Aeris, not Aerith and I will be pedantic about this until the day I drop dead.


End file.
